L.A. Archdiocese Adds Priests’ Names to Abuse List
The Archdiocese of Los Angeles has quietly added two dozen priests and brothers to its list of clergy accused of child molestation.
Though the church deems the allegations against the men credible, the archdiocese has declined to release information about the complaints, including the number of accusers, the dates of the alleged abuse and the parishes where the men worked.
The names were disclosed in a two-page report posted on the archdiocese’s website last month alongside 12,000 pages of internal records related to its handling of abuse claims.
The document was discovered recently by BishopAccountability.org, a nonprofit that researches and archives records of the Catholic abuse scandal.
The group’s president, who stumbled upon the document during a recent Google search, criticized the inconspicuous way the men were named and the lack of information provided about their cases.
“The terrible mess in the Catholic church happened because information was hidden and controlled, and that attitude is very clearly wrong,” said Terry McKiernan.
He said he was stunned to see so many new names suddenly connected to a scandal in which details and key figures have been recounted for 11 years in lawsuits, criminal probes, news articles, books and documentaries.
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